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Maintaining your skills as a musician

Songwriting can be great fun and can even be an addiction. A very healthy and productive one! Once you get inside a music studio in Sydney and begin to let the creative juices flow, hours can pass without even noticing. While this is a great place to be in we mustn’t forget the rudiments of playing music and maintaining our skills!

In fact practicing and discovering new techniques, rhythmic patterns and melodic devices can enhance our song writing and recording studio ability. Below I have outlined a few techniques, concepts and approaches for developing focus and direction in your practice routine

Stay with one theme for a period of time.

When maintaining your skills be sure to focus on one particular style or style for a period of time. Not hours or days but rather weeks. (Sometimes it takes even months of practice in a Sydney recording studio.)

As consumers we are constantly bombarded with new music from Spotify to Apple music to all the latest releases on YouTube and the radio. As well as this there are instructional videos, blogs and websites with a multitude of suggestions about what we should be learning and practicing. Musicians often find themselves jumping from one technique to another without mastering anything quite perfectly. While there’s certainly nothing wrong with having variety in your practice routine. The way to really improve is to stick at one concept for a while. To take a very simple example. If you want to improve your playing and phrasing as a guitarist for example. I highly recommend looking closely classic solos and focusing on every inflection. Its these details that make great musicians great. From the length of each note to the style of picking and also the pitch accuracy of bending notes.

Focus on whatever you are trying to accomplish for a period of weeks. This will create a consistency and authenticity in your playing. It’s important to state at this point that you should choose something you are passionate about. If you enjoy the playing of the master you are imitating you will be inspired to spend more focussed time on that aspect of practicing in a music studio in Sydney.

Slow things down

Very much related to the previous paragraph is the idea of slowing down sections of a song or solo in order to be more accurate. Playing something fast over and over his very ineffective. It does not iron out the problems that need to be ironed out. In fact it can cause you to develop bad technique and habits! Allow your muscle memory and fingers to adjust and really absorb what you are learning. Give them a chance lock into new phrase over time. Slow down and focus on the details. It may seem tedious at the time they will pay great dividends later on. When people are listening and wondering what that “x-factor” is as you solo years down the track, you can surely point back to this concept. Similarly, when learning a new scale this is especially important. Playing a scale fast does not necessarily mean it is is embedded in your long-term memory. Try the scale slowly in different positions and “feel” each note. Allow each note and each position on the fretboard to become a part of your long term memory. When this happens you will find that you can call on it at any time when improvising in a Sydney recording studio.

Set goals

Goal setting is especially important when desiring to improve our playing. The goals can be very simple and no doubt they will change from time to time. The important thing is that when you sit down with the instrument you think before playing! So many times we just pick a guitar up and “noodle”. Its very relaxing and can be great for relieving stress. Many non-professional adult students simply want to play guitar for stress relief and therapy and this is fine! They don’t necessarily have the goal like you of maintaining your skills.They have other focusses and occupations in life and guitar is just an “outlet”. If however you are looking to move forward as a musician focus is essential. Quite literally before picking up the instrument, tell yourself OUT LOUD what you hope to accomplish. This will cause you to be so much more time efficient. It is astounding what someone can accomplish in just 10 minutes a day. Its not quantity that you need to improve. It is quality in focus. The irony about this entire concept is that at the end of a productive 10 minutes you will feel so much more accomplished and relaxed than if you wasted 10 minutes noodling! Playing something we are already familiar with because it sounds good is really a time waster. Yes it can be gratifying for a moment. But frankly – MOVE ON! Forward progress is exhilarating when you develop momentum. I cannot emphasise enough how fulfilling it is after a week or 2 of just 20 minutes a day on a new technique in a music studio in Sydney to feel yourself nailing it. If you’re looking to make a big impact in a sound studio in Sydney, go in with a constantly evolving skill set!